But what I actually want to talk about in this post are the thoughts about marriage that crossed my mind over the week where I was a bridesmaid for two different weddings of dear friends. Don't worry, I haven't caught wedding fever (HAHA) but I couldn't help but think about husbands and marriage and life partners when I was literally surrounded by all of it.
The first wedding was held at Bernardo Winery in RB, and it was all that was intimate, charming, rustic, and joyful. What I loved about this wedding was that everything had meaning to the couple, and it truly felt like a celebration of the love between two people. For example, the couple met during college when they joined an a capella group and for the ceremony, the group reunited and sang the entrance song for my friend as she walked down the aisle. It was a beautiful and fitting rendition of "She's Got a Way." I also really loved the groom's wedding vows. I think the bridesmaids cried the most during his vows. They were so lovely.
The second wedding was held in La Jolla, at a venue overlooking the beach, and it was stunning and elegant, and really emotional. I was just destroyed during the whole ceremony AND reception-- this was the marriage of one of my oldest and dearest friends. I remembered how we'd talk about weddings back in middle school, then witnessed the couple's courtship of 7 years, and then to be present on their wedding day. It was surreal to see everything come together over the years. Every single person who talked during the ceremony or reception gave such brilliant words, combined with the fact that it was such a family affair, and the emotions were just running high that day. It wasn't all tears and sobbing though, as we definitely pulled ourselves together to have the most epic dance battle to have ever taken place. BOOM.
But this post isn't just to talk about how great these weddings were.
I've found that over the years I have, and I think rightly so, come down off that cloud where weddings are the be-all and end-all. I used to romanticized everything about marriage and weddings, way back when I didn't have a clue about what it would take to actually reach an altar, much less maintain a marriage. I mean, I used to want to be a wedding planner, for crying out loud, and that was way before Jennifer Lopez brought attention to it in the movie, fittingly titled, "The Wedding Planner" (still love Massimo though!).
I am not one to poo poo on the ideas of marriage or weddings. I can enjoy and be present and happy for couples; I am always about celebrating love between people and it is beyond me to comment on what others choose for themselves (as long as they have the choice). But what I have come to realize over the last few years, and what was really confirmed for me this past week, is not that I don't believe in marriage, but that I just don't think it is for me.
Let me back up a bit.
When I was younger and more optimistic, I thought that I would be married by 23 (OMG) and knew the what, where, when of my whole wedding. The Who of it all was the least of my worries. As I got older, and after I passed my 23rd birthday, I didn't give any thought to marriage or a wedding. I was busy. I was studying. I was working. I was dreaming. I was traveling. And then one day I came to realize that a LOT of my friends were getting engaged and marrying their long-time boyfriends, and I hadn't even thought about any of that in years. That I couldn't even invision what my wedding would look like now, at the ripe old age of--my late 20s. There was nothing. No color schemes, no themes, no venue ideas, no flowers, nothing. It was a far cry from 15 years ago.
During the two weddings, which were very different from each other, but equally lovely, sometimes I would think, "Would I do it this way?" "How would I want it for my ceremony?" And I was keeping mental notes of things I thought I might want. But then it wasn't even about the music selection, or the flowers, or the venue. It wasn't that I couldn't envision my wedding. It was that I couldn't envision me wanting a wedding.
How can that be? you ask.
This goes against almost everything that I have been brought up and conditioned to want in life. Let me say again that I am not nay-saying marriage. I am not discouraging others from wanting to have a big wedding and to be married. I have been privileged to witness several marriages that are beautiful and work and I am nothing but happy for them. I will be equally happy for anyone who ties the knot.
But I think relationships are hard. And love is complicated. And that people are more complex than they realize. And marriage, I would imagine, is difficult. And to stay in love with someone, as you continue to grow and as they continue to grow, and as you both go through this unpredictable thing called life, I think, is difficult enough without adding another layer of "till death do us part."
Some will argue that being married makes you fight for your relationship. That you have vows you are committed to, that you have responsibilities to this person whom you call your husband or wife. That you are part of something grander and bigger now than just yourself. And that it is all worth fighting for.
I get that. Believe me, I do.
But do you have to be married to fight for your relationship? Does marriage really make you fight harder? Can't you have promises and be part of something bigger than yourself without labels?
Fundamentally, this is all I would ask. To wake up next to someone everyday and be able to say, simply and truthfully, "I still choose you." And there is nothing binding us together except for this little choice we make, consciously, everyday. And you're here because you want to be, and I'm here because I want to be, and we don't feel the pressure of anything outside just the two of us to continue to be here.
Something like that.
I mean, this is a complicated topic to talk about for so many reasons, but I just wanted to put this out there as being where I am on it at this moment in my life. Things can change, I realize. And I also know that people will tell me that this is all because I haven't met "the one" yet. And I also know that I'll probably eat my words somewhere down the future because I've written this post. Feel free to remind me of it at that time.
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